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But JavaScript is a bad language, objectively. There's little debate on that subject. Most of us use it because we have to, even though there are much better l

by lucian1900 12y ago

But JavaScript is a bad language, objectively. There's little debate on that subject. Most of us use it because we have to, even though there are much better languages available.

ceejayoz 12y ago
> Most of us use it because we have to, even though there are much better languages available. Node's popularity is a pretty dramatic counterexample to that assertion.
- smt88 12y ago
  > Node's popularity is a pretty dramatic counterexample to that assertion. Popularity has nothing to do with quality. Node is popular because so many people knew JavaScript anyway. JavaScript is popular because it was the only widely-supported programming language for the browser (other than ActionScript, which is itself an ECMAScript flavor).
  - ceejayoz 12y ago
    > Popularity has nothing to do with quality And that has nothing to do with the discussion at hand. The statement "Most of us use it because we have to" is pretty clearly refuted by the fact that no one had to use JS on the server-side, yet plenty still pick Node over other alternatives (even ones they know well).
    - smt88 12y ago
      No one "has to" use anything, even if they only know that one thing. It doesn't take that long to learn a new language. I wasn't saying that people use it because they have to. There are a lot of reasons to use Node on the server side that are still unrelated to the quality of JavaScript as a language. 1) Easy asynchronous execution (something that is also making Go very popular) 2) Easy to get started 3) Lots of existing libraries 4) Everyone, including frontend devs, knows it already If you're starting a Python project, you're probably going to prefer hiring Python devs. If you're starting a Node project, you can hire anyone who has done full-stack or frontend work, including Ruby and PHP devs. Again, all of those are really compelling reasons to use Node, but they have nothing to do with the way JavaScript is designed. The seminal JavaScript book ("The Good Parts") even alludes to the fact that it's not a thoroughly good language. Further evidence that it's not a good language are the huge number of compile-to-JavaScript projects popping up (TypeScript and Go come to mind). I also went to a JavaScript conference, and not a single company was using Node through their whole stack, even for new projects. They were typically using Ruby, Python, or PHP for the bulk of their backend, and JavaScript was a thin API layer. I know this is also the case at Yahoo and probably some other companies. I could write a lot about why I (and lots of others in the dev community) find JavaScript to be Blub-y and fragile, but this is long enough already. The dynamic typing and many ways it behaves unexpectedly are among the major problems.
  - retardedelk 12y ago
    More important that "so many people knew JavaScript anyway", is the fact that using the same code in the browser as on the server means that they can share code, data-models, tests, and it makes it trivial to develop isomorphic web applications.
  - shiggerino 12y ago
    > Node is popular because so many people knew JavaScript anyway. Is that true, though? I see very few JavaScript developers with a solid background in computer science or software engineering on the job market, compared to the demand these days, as more and more stuff goes to the browser or native HTML applications. Taking kids out of web design schools is too much of a gamble unless you already have a senior JS dev on the team to keep an eye on them. But then again it might be different in places like Silicon Valley.
    - smt88 12y ago
      > Is that true, though? I see very few JavaScript developers with a solid background in computer science or software engineering on the job market That's exactly my point. A huge amount of labor for developing web apps are people who have not come from CS/engineering backgrounds. They're self-taught, and a lot of them started with web technologies. So it was really easy for those people to transition into backend development because they already knew JavaScript.
- EugeneOZ 12y ago
  I think you overestimate Node's popularity, compared to other languages on the server side.
  - xasos 12y ago
    It's getting more significant. Keep in mind it's only been around for five years, and still has a very good adoption rate for a new technology.
  - Touche 12y ago
    How would you measure such a thing? NPM has more modules than any other language package manager, isn't that evidence that Node is at least somewhat popular?
    - EugeneOZ 12y ago
      I didn't say it's not popular. I'm just saying Node's popularity is not even near to Java or PHP. But I agree that Node's/io.js hype is much louder nowadays :)
      - Touche 12y ago
        Does it have to be the most popular runtime to counter the "no one really likes JavaScript, we just use it because we have to" claim? As the grandparent said, no one has to use Node, but people do; a lot of them. I find this topic to be intellectually insulting. You know that JavaScript has its (tens of thousands of) fans. Why tell yourself otherwise? Is your hatred of it so overwhelming that you're not even ready to admit to yourself that others disagree with you?
        EugeneOZ 12y ago
        "we have to" was not my phrase and it was about client side, not server side. And it's true. Somebody love JS, somebody not so much - nothing wrong with it. People are different and it's the key of evolution.
- wolfwyrd 12y ago
  By that reasoning PHP must be amazing
  - ceejayoz 12y ago
    With things like Symfony/Laravel and HHVM/PHP7, it can be.
  - WorldWideWayne 12y ago
    Windows too. (Disclaimer: I actually think that many facets of Windows are better than anything else, but I know many here do not.)
- bonif 12y ago
  Sure, McDonalds is in fact the best food available. Come on
mrcwinn 12y ago
There's nothing objective about that statement, since it depends on what you value. If you value having a language that is supported natively by every browser, I would argue JavaScript is - subjectively - quite fantastic!
- EugeneOZ 12y ago
  It's like use iron for any work just because it's most widely available element on the Earth.
- lucian1900 12y ago
  In isolation of its ubiquity, JS is not a good language.
PSeitz 12y ago
Every language hat it pros and cons. Overall we could do much worse than JavaScript.
EugeneOZ 12y ago
It's strange to expect something else from the JS framework, so it's a really moot point in the list.
emodendroket 12y ago
Have you just recently stepped out of a time machine? There is quite a bit of debate on that subject.
grandalf 12y ago
Of which is that true: ES5, ES6, ES7, etc.? Clojurescript, typescript, etc.?

But JavaScript is a bad language, objectively. There's little debate on that subject. Most of us use it because we have to, even though there are much better languages available.

ceejayoz 12y ago

> Most of us use it because we have to, even though there are much better languages available. Node's popularity is a pretty dramatic counterexample to that assertion.

smt88 12y ago
> Node's popularity is a pretty dramatic counterexample to that assertion. Popularity has nothing to do with quality. Node is popular because so many people knew JavaScript anyway. JavaScript is popular because it was the only widely-supported programming language for the browser (other than ActionScript, which is itself an ECMAScript flavor).
- ceejayoz 12y ago
  > Popularity has nothing to do with quality And that has nothing to do with the discussion at hand. The statement "Most of us use it because we have to" is pretty clearly refuted by the fact that no one had to use JS on the server-side, yet plenty still pick Node over other alternatives (even ones they know well).
  - smt88 12y ago
    No one "has to" use anything, even if they only know that one thing. It doesn't take that long to learn a new language. I wasn't saying that people use it because they have to. There are a lot of reasons to use Node on the server side that are still unrelated to the quality of JavaScript as a language. 1) Easy asynchronous execution (something that is also making Go very popular) 2) Easy to get started 3) Lots of existing libraries 4) Everyone, including frontend devs, knows it already If you're starting a Python project, you're probably going to prefer hiring Python devs. If you're starting a Node project, you can hire anyone who has done full-stack or frontend work, including Ruby and PHP devs. Again, all of those are really compelling reasons to use Node, but they have nothing to do with the way JavaScript is designed. The seminal JavaScript book ("The Good Parts") even alludes to the fact that it's not a thoroughly good language. Further evidence that it's not a good language are the huge number of compile-to-JavaScript projects popping up (TypeScript and Go come to mind). I also went to a JavaScript conference, and not a single company was using Node through their whole stack, even for new projects. They were typically using Ruby, Python, or PHP for the bulk of their backend, and JavaScript was a thin API layer. I know this is also the case at Yahoo and probably some other companies. I could write a lot about why I (and lots of others in the dev community) find JavaScript to be Blub-y and fragile, but this is long enough already. The dynamic typing and many ways it behaves unexpectedly are among the major problems.
- retardedelk 12y ago
  More important that "so many people knew JavaScript anyway", is the fact that using the same code in the browser as on the server means that they can share code, data-models, tests, and it makes it trivial to develop isomorphic web applications.
- shiggerino 12y ago
  > Node is popular because so many people knew JavaScript anyway. Is that true, though? I see very few JavaScript developers with a solid background in computer science or software engineering on the job market, compared to the demand these days, as more and more stuff goes to the browser or native HTML applications. Taking kids out of web design schools is too much of a gamble unless you already have a senior JS dev on the team to keep an eye on them. But then again it might be different in places like Silicon Valley.
  - smt88 12y ago
    > Is that true, though? I see very few JavaScript developers with a solid background in computer science or software engineering on the job market That's exactly my point. A huge amount of labor for developing web apps are people who have not come from CS/engineering backgrounds. They're self-taught, and a lot of them started with web technologies. So it was really easy for those people to transition into backend development because they already knew JavaScript.
EugeneOZ 12y ago
I think you overestimate Node's popularity, compared to other languages on the server side.
- xasos 12y ago
  It's getting more significant. Keep in mind it's only been around for five years, and still has a very good adoption rate for a new technology.
- Touche 12y ago
  How would you measure such a thing? NPM has more modules than any other language package manager, isn't that evidence that Node is at least somewhat popular?
  - EugeneOZ 12y ago
    I didn't say it's not popular. I'm just saying Node's popularity is not even near to Java or PHP. But I agree that Node's/io.js hype is much louder nowadays :)
    - Touche 12y ago
      Does it have to be the most popular runtime to counter the "no one really likes JavaScript, we just use it because we have to" claim? As the grandparent said, no one has to use Node, but people do; a lot of them. I find this topic to be intellectually insulting. You know that JavaScript has its (tens of thousands of) fans. Why tell yourself otherwise? Is your hatred of it so overwhelming that you're not even ready to admit to yourself that others disagree with you?
      - EugeneOZ 12y ago
        "we have to" was not my phrase and it was about client side, not server side. And it's true. Somebody love JS, somebody not so much - nothing wrong with it. People are different and it's the key of evolution.
wolfwyrd 12y ago
By that reasoning PHP must be amazing
- ceejayoz 12y ago
  With things like Symfony/Laravel and HHVM/PHP7, it can be.
- WorldWideWayne 12y ago
  Windows too. (Disclaimer: I actually think that many facets of Windows are better than anything else, but I know many here do not.)
bonif 12y ago
Sure, McDonalds is in fact the best food available. Come on

mrcwinn 12y ago

There's nothing objective about that statement, since it depends on what you value. If you value having a language that is supported natively by every browser, I would argue JavaScript is - subjectively - quite fantastic!

EugeneOZ 12y ago
It's like use iron for any work just because it's most widely available element on the Earth.
lucian1900 12y ago
In isolation of its ubiquity, JS is not a good language.

PSeitz 12y ago

Every language hat it pros and cons. Overall we could do much worse than JavaScript.

EugeneOZ 12y ago

It's strange to expect something else from the JS framework, so it's a really moot point in the list.

emodendroket 12y ago

Have you just recently stepped out of a time machine? There is quite a bit of debate on that subject.

grandalf 12y ago

Of which is that true: ES5, ES6, ES7, etc.? Clojurescript, typescript, etc.?